Tal's Iraq War: Blood for Oil, Oil for Food, Food for Thought

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See this is the problem. You do not stick to arguments. You simply started out with calling someone a name. If you had a detailed reason, there was no real way for anyone to know.

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Characterising this as "calling someone a name" is unfair. I made a correct and valid historical comparison which was immediately jumped on as being hyperbolic. If you respond with "why do you think that" or some similar approach you will get the argument in full. If your only response is invective and denunciation, you will receive full reciprocity.

When the original statement only looks like invective, it hardly invites questions as to why you would say such a thing.I'm not suggesting this is a possibility, I am telling you you have a habit of making such comments. They may all be innocent mistakes, but somehow I doubt it. For those which really have reasoning behind them (like this comparison) you might want to think in advance how people are likely to read it.I accept comparisons to Nazi germany when I feel they are appropriate. Your comment didn't look like that at all, though this later explanation was an intriguing connection and if it had been connected to your first statement as you made it, would have made it seem less ad hominem in nature.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"Don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

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The fact that the US "complained" when our buildings get blown up has nothing to do with your rudeness to the PEOPLE here on this board.

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Of course it does, becuase your allegation of "rudeness" procedes from the same historically ignorant hubris.

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I'd like to debate with you, contra, but you stop debating when you tell people they are "fuckwits", "nazi's", and "murderers". At that point you are insulting and fighting with people. That is NOT debate in any sense of the word. It's flaming.

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Fuckwit I would concede (as, of course, a measured and proportional response) but murderer and Nazi I will not. They are accurate, I stand by them, regardless of your a priori rejection. Your presumptions do not govern my thoughts. If you are as copmmitted to debate as you claim, then you must surely debate my ACTUAL positions.

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No, I don't, contra, that's the point you continually avoid looking at.

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Really? One might have thought 9/11 proved you wrong.

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We suspend people here at EvC for continually making personal attacks, remember?

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Yes yes but then you turn a blind eye to certain personal attacks like accusing someone of being deliberately provocative merely becuase their argument is outside what you consider reasonable. And, of course, turn a blind eye to racism, and to various and sundry lies about communism. So pull the other one, its got bells on.

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You didn't answer my question, either. It would be rude of someone to call you a baby-killing communist hater of freedom and justice, wouldn't it?

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Nobody cares in the real world I'm afraid. If you won;t talk you must fight; thus if you don't want to fight you must talk regardless. Thats how it works. It's also how the whole "we wont negotiate with terrorists" thiing becomes a stone around your neck. I do not recognises any valid reasons whatsoever for terminating discussion. to do so is to resort to force.

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Oh, so you actually have such a poor grasp of the English language and such poor mastery of tact and diplomacy that you are simply unable to deliver your ideas in a way that does not insult people?

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Of course I can. But if people CHOOSE to be insulted BY my ideas there is nothing I can do about it. Other than hope they grow up.

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I don't buy that for a second. You like being provocative and insulting. You get off on pissing people off. You don't care at all if people are convinced that you are right, you just like feeling your righteous indignation.

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What was that about personal attacks, Schraf? Just becuase its easy to whip up a lynch mob in response to the term Nazi does not mean its not a personal attack. As I have made abundantly clear, for as long as you persist in calling MY OPINIONS insulting you are making the personal attacks as far as I am concerned. And thats quite apart from hijacking this thread with this off-topic rant.I've just provided probably my single largest post on the EVC to date to explain this position and YOU STILL INSIST I DON'T ACTUALLY MEAN IT. Get a life.

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When you call someone a "fuckwit", a "murderer", or a "Nazi", do you think you were intending to be polite, or insulting?

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So, it would be better if I drew comparisons to the NSDAP? If thats the appropriate comparator, then that is the appropriate comparator. Truth hurts, deal with it.

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You CAN'T make me care. You cannot MAKE anyone care, contra. You can only convince through rational argument, not ranting and rude invective and threats.

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People sometimes say "I don't believe in war". I always tell them "too bad - war believes in you." Of course you can be MADE to care. It's not even hard.

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If you do choose to use those highly provocative words, then you will not get a discussion, it's just a fact. Welcome to society.

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Yes, you know, society, that thing thats full of many people and ideas cultures, not just one monoculture. I AM NOT BEHOLDEN TO YOUR DOMESTIC PREJUDICES.

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You can call the US Facist all you want. You could even say that the US and Germany in the 1930's have a lot in common. But it is well known that invoking Hitler or Nazis in a discussion is provocative and will get people riled up. So will calling people "murderers".

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... and its also well known that "they would say that, wouldn't they." I have provided reasons, links, and excerpts demonstrating my view that this is totally invalid. But you insist on spinning it; you insist I don't ACTUALLY think the US is like NAzi germany, and that I don't ACTUALLY think that Nazi's are a perfectly valid precednt to discuss. You appear to be insisting that you know my mind better than I do. How arrogant is that?I have even pointed out to you and others before that seeing as I grew up in a partially Fascist environment, it is probably much much less implausible to me than it appears to be to you. I do not live in your fantasyland; I am not limited to what you consider "acceptable"; and I will not have my argument censored as unacceptable merely because you find it shocking. Thats the whole point of democracy, Schraf, we ALL get to discuss our views.

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No, you didn't offer what I said I wanted. I said I wanted analysis that was not littered with insult and invective.

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Well then perhaps you and FliesOnly should not have launched into invective before asking what I meant, should you?

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Like this meeting with DeKlerk. Did Mandela scream in DeKlerk's face that he was a MURDERER!!!

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No he didn't Schraf. Because when he was released, he had just spent 27 years in a terrible prison run by a partially Fascist state, and he was in large part a broken man. All the fire was gone. Thats why he was not immediately assassinated; he was no longer a threat.So now I wait to see whether you find comparisons of the SA gov to Fascism as offensive as you find the same comparison to the US. Well?If you'd like to appreciate the conditions, I recommend Athol Fugard's play "The Island".

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Mandela didn't use anger or strident language, did he? He was calm and gave factual testimony. He didn't say "Yes, they MURDERED us and it would be better for the world if they were WIPED off the face of the Earth!!!"

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This seems to me so politically naive I don't know where to begin. The default informal term for a South African police officer has/had all the connotations associated with the Nazi's and the SS. So of course there was a hell of a lot of invective in the course of the struggle. Mandela, when in court, under tangible threat of summary execution, and perhaps more importantly, FUNCTIONING AS THE PUBLIC MOUTHPIECE OF A MOVEMENT, is operating under different conditions. I am not the public mouthpiece of a movement - I am merely a particiapnt in the struggle. And for as long as you persist in refusing to discuss the issues, and instead slander me with this gratuitous charge, you will get what you deserve.

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I am afraid that you are probably getting too much payoff from needlessly pissing people off and somehow think that this means that your position is stronger.

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I don't get any payoff. I just have quite a lot of experience of sitting through the semi-Fascist cultural conditioning of Americans, and am quite thick skinned these days. Regardless how you dress it up, you're still making excuses for failing to deal with the issues.

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I accept comparisons to Nazi germany when I feel they are appropriate. Your comment didn't look like that at all, though this later explanation was an intriguing connection and if it had been connected to your first statement as you made it, would have made it seem less ad hominem in nature.

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Which gives me my argument en bloc - you rejected it as a knee-jerk reflex, and then found my argument was far more reasonable than you had assumed. Why don't you allow for that possibility in the first place? Does it not occur to you perhaps that I simply didn't have the time to give a comprehensively full explanation right there and then?Even so, I frankly had/have no reason to believe anyone would actually bother taking the time to read the argument becuase its rejected out of hand and further slandered as deliberately provocative. You people do not show yourselves to be discussing in good faith.

Eh? How's that? How can you say we are culturally conditioned when half the country voted for Kerry and the other half for Bush? It seems to me like we are free to express our ideas.

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Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8
No webpage found at provided URL: www.1st-vets.us

Why not come at this from a less defensive and more honest and practical approach? The reason why people might not assume it is anything more, is because it does not look like anything more.This has nothing to do with indoctrination and resistance to certain name usage, but simply how you say something. In context (which is that there is no other words to put it in any other context) it looks like name calling. Many would say the same for you and I would be one of them. That does not mean both sides don't have some cleaning up to do. Clearly one of yours is to watch how you say things, so that people can understand what you are saying.I might add, taking a trip to the US to dispell some of the very inaccurate visions you have about that place. As problematic as it is, it simply is not how you depict it (though watching FoxNEWS would give one that impression... gag).

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"Don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

To nitpick a littel, half the voters voted for Kerry and the other half for Bush.

Contracycle: You are an absolute riot!
Now your defense seems to be something along the lines of:But Your Honor, I did not really mean FIREwhat I really meant to say was; By golly, if the Brownian motion of the air molecules in this confined space collide at an increased rate, thus increasing their current thermal properties, it’s entirely possible that some of the Quercus and Fraxinus secondary xylem that comprise the seating, as well as its hexamethylene diamine covering, might reach their respective combustion points.Golly gee, I thought everyone knew that that is what I meant when I yelled FIRE!

I know this is a coffee house thread, but when did the topic turn from the OP to Contra's attitude? My suggestion is if there is a member that you have a problem with, participating in one of these less moderated fora that you ignore them and don't respond to their messages.I know, I know...quite a novel concept for this group but honestly...it really does work.

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AdminAsgara Queen of the Universe

http://asgarasworld.bravepages.com http://perditionsgate.bravepages.com

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The fact that the US "complained" when our buildings get blown up has nothing to do with your rudeness to the PEOPLE here on this board.

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Of course it does, becuase your allegation of "rudeness" procedes from the same historically ignorant hubris.

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No, contra, it comes from YOUR history of calling people "fuckwit", "nazi", and "murderer".

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Fuckwit I would concede (as, of course, a measured and proportional response)

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About frigging time you conceded that. Good, though.

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but murderer and Nazi I will not.They are accurate, I stand by them, regardless of your a priori rejection.

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The issue isn't, and HAS NEVER BEEN, if the use of those words is accurate or not.The issue is if the use of those words is RUDE or not, and that when you use them, you are not engaging in productive debate in that you are well aware that the use of those words will repel people.What is your goal here?Seriously, what is your goal here? I've asked this question of you at least 20 times now and you have yet to answer.What is your goal here in having these discussions? I'd like to know.

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Your presumptions do not govern my thoughts.

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Too bad.

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If you are as copmmitted to debate as you claim, then you must surely debate my ACTUAL positions.

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I'd like to, but when you resort to name calling, I just stop paying attention because I don't repond well to rudeness and wild accusations.

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Really? One might have thought 9/11 proved you wrong.

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JHChrist, contra, can you PLEASE STOP trying to make EVERY single bleeping thing into a geopolitical issue? We are not talking about WHAT you say, but HOW you say it.I will simply repeat what you avoided reponding to from my last message.On this debate board, I don't have to pay any attention to you if I don't want to. It is NOT because of discomfort with your views, it is because of your rudeness and strident invective.

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Yes yes but then you turn a blind eye to certain personal attacks like accusing someone of being deliberately provocative merely becuase their argument is outside what you consider reasonable.

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It's not your arguments I find unreasonable, most of the time. It is your invective and rudeness, IOW, the WAY you present them, that I find off-putting.Are you noticing a pattern, yet, contra? You accuse me of objecting to WHAT you say. I then tell you that I usually AGREE with most of the content of what you say, but that the WAY to present it, filled with spleen-venting and rudeness, is objectional.You then tell me that I am trying to censor you or that I object to your ideas. Lather, rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat.

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And, of course, turn a blind eye to racism, and to various and sundry lies about communism. So pull the other one, its got bells on.

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You are rude, contra. That's what this is about.What is your goal here?

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Of course I can.

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Then why not do it all the time?

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But if people CHOOSE to be insulted BY my ideas

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I'm not generally insulted by most of your ideas, contra.I am insulted by the WAY you present those ideas.

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there is nothing I can do about it. Other than hope they grow up.

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I see.What is your goal here?

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What was that about personal attacks, Schraf?

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Am I wrong, because you are acting exactly and precisely the way someone I described above would act?What is your goal here?Certainly, you are getting a great payoff of some kind by being abrasive and rude and extreme. Generally, people want others to listen to them and will stop being rude in order to acheive that end. You don't, though.

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Just becuase its easy to whip up a lynch mob in response to the term Nazi does not mean its not a personal attack.

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Lynch mob? People are trying to be honest and helpful to you, contra. If we thought that you were just some crazy crank without any wothwhile interesting ideas, we wouldn't be bothering. We's just ignore you completely.

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As I have made abundantly clear, for as long as you persist in calling MY OPINIONS insulting

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I haven't, though. I AGREE with many of your opinions, remember? I object to the WAY you present your opinions, which is needlessly rude and abrasive and angry.What is your goal here?

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you are making the personal attacks as far as I am concerned.

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But I'm not. I'm telling you that your opinions are often really interesting but your delivery of them makes it highly unlikely that anyone will ever see how interesting your opinions are.What is your goal here?

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And thats quite apart from hijacking this thread with this off-topic rant.

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No rant. And I know I'm off topic, but I haven't heard from any Mods yet...

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I've just provided probably my single largest post on the EVC to date to explain this position and YOU STILL INSIST I DON'T ACTUALLY MEAN IT. Get a life.

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I know you've explained your position, but you haven't actually answered the most important question.What is your goal here?

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So, it would be better if I drew comparisons to the NSDAP? If thats the appropriate comparator, then that is the appropriate comparator. Truth hurts, deal with it.

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That's just it, contra. People don't HAVE to deal with you or anything you say here. They can just ignore you.It DOES suck that you can't force anyone to listen to you.Welcome to society.What is your goal here?

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People sometimes say "I don't believe in war". I always tell them "too bad - war believes in you." Of course you can be MADE to care. It's not even hard.

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We're not talking about war. We're talking about people reading your posts.You can't make anyone here at EvC read your posts, contra. You actively discourage people from reading your posts when you behave rudely.It DOES suck that you can't force people to read your posts, doesn't it?Welcome to society.

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Yes, you know, society, that thing thats full of many people and ideas cultures, not just one monoculture. I AM NOT BEHOLDEN TO YOUR DOMESTIC PREJUDICES.

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It is not any "domestic prejudice" that causes me to stop reading your posts when you are rude, contra.I don't read your posts when you are angry and rude.Your poor, ill-mannered behavire causes me to stop reading your posts.

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... and its also well known that "they would say that, wouldn't they." I have provided reasons, links, and excerpts demonstrating my view that this is totally invalid. But you insist on spinning it; you insist I don't ACTUALLY think the US is like NAzi germany, and that I don't ACTUALLY think that Nazi's are a perfectly valid precednt to discuss. You appear to be insisting that you know my mind better than I do. How arrogant is that?

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No, you are incorrect. I do believe you that you think these things.I am just, very patiently, repeatedly telling you that it doesn't matter how right you are if you present your ideas in such a way that nobody is listening to them.

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I have even pointed out to you and others before that seeing as I grew up in a partially Fascist environment, it is probably much much less implausible to me than it appears to be to you. I do not live in your fantasyland; I am not limited to what you consider "acceptable"; and I will not have my argument censored as unacceptable merely because you find it shocking. Thats the whole point of democracy, Schraf, we ALL get to discuss our views.

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Right. We want you discuss them. We also have the ability to ignore you when you are rude.I am much less likely to ignore you when you are not rude, and I think that is the case with most of us here. So,I ask again, what is your goal here?Do you want us to listen to you or not? If the answer is yes, then stop being rude. If you don't care if people listen to you or not, then maintain your present behavior patterns. It's all up to you.

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No, you didn't offer what I said I wanted. I said I wanted analysis that was not littered with insult and invective.

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Well then perhaps you and FliesOnly should not have launched into invective before asking what I meant, should you?

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Don't you dare try to blame anybody else for your poor behavior. Even if FliesOnly called you a "fuckwit", it is no excuse for you to behave badly.

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No he didn't Schraf. Because when he was released, he had just spent 27 years in a terrible prison run by a partially Fascist state, and he was in large part a broken man. All the fire was gone. Thats why he was not immediately assassinated; he was no longer a threat.

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He was "unbroken" enough to be elected president, wasn't he? He wasn't considered a threat as President?How did he engender support? Did he want to attack and persecute everyone who opposed him? Or, did he engender support by calling for reconciliation and forgiveness, for healing?

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So now I wait to see whether you find comparisons of the SA gov to Fascism as offensive as you find the same comparison to the US. Well?

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I don't find comparisons to the US government and Facism offensive at all. I find the the US is sliding more and more in to Facism every year.Anyway, I wasn't objecting to your ideas, or trying to censor them at all.I was was objecting to your rude and abrasive delivery of your ideas, which repels people.

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If you'd like to appreciate the conditions, I recommend Athol Fugard's play "The Island".

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Hmm, sounds good. I read "Cry, The Beloved Country" at University years ago, and I still have my copy and have reread it a couple of times.

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This seems to me so politically naive I don't know where to begin....(snip)I am not the public mouthpiece of a movement - I am merely a particiapnt in the struggle. And for as long as you persist in refusing to discuss the issues, and instead slander me with this gratuitous charge, you will get what you deserve.

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Thank goodness you are not the public mouthpiece of your movement.Nobody would ever hear the message, because you'd have driven them all away by your rudeness by now.I don't refuse to discuss the issues at all. I just refuse to deal with an angry, self-righteous, rude person.There's not a single issue you have brought up that I haven't discussed in a different context.

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I don't get any payoff.

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Sure you do, otherwise you wouldn't do it even though you are fully aware that it is making people STOP READING YOUR POSTS.What is your goal here?Is it to have people ignore you?

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I just have quite a lot of experience of sitting through the semi-Fascist cultural conditioning of Americans,

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OK, fine, we're all conditioned. What is the best way to get through to us and help us see this? By calling us "fuckwits" and "murderers?"Do you think doing this is likely to encourage us to listen or discourage us?Do you even care if we are listening? You don't act like you care.

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and am quite thick skinned these days. Regardless how you dress it up, you're still making excuses for failing to deal with the issues.

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Contra, you do know that my major participation in this thread with Tal was to criticize the U.S. government's actions and propaganda? I believe you are *hurting* the attempt to get the criticisms of the U.S. government out there and understood because you are muddying up the message with your invective and venom?

The fight against "terrorists" has always been two-faced if you consider the money that americans shuffed into the pockets of murderers like Sinn Fein/IRA.

Wha?

Ok, asgara, I'm pretty much done here anyway.

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My suggestion is if there is a member that you have a problem with, participating in one of these less moderated fora that you ignore them and don't respond to their messages.

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The thing is that I don't want to ignore Contracycle. I think he's fully capable of productive discussion, he just doesn't make the effort to control his temper or use tact.

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Eh? How's that? How can you say we are culturally conditioned when half the country voted for Kerry and the other half for Bush? It seems to me like we are free to express our ideas.

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Precisely becuase you DID vote for Kerry and Bush - and especially on the Democrat side, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth at the prospect that someone might actually try giving the voters what they wanted instead of compelling them to select between two almosy indistinguishable candidates. Nearly identical policies; both military men, both wealthy, both male, both white.You choose between the pope in Rome, or the pope in Avignon, without ever seeming to think maybe you don't need a pope at all. And thenb you positively worship the winning candidate, as if by the mere act of election he has achieved some higher plane of human developement.

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When the original statement only looks like invective, it hardly invites questions as to why you would say such a thing.

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Well it only looks like invective because uou say so. That is not in any way objective - you are CHOOSING to interpret some things I say as invective, and some as analysis.

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I accept comparisons to Nazi germany when I feel they are appropriate. Your comment didn't look like that at all, though this later explanation was an intriguing connection and if it had been connected to your first statement as you made it, would have made it seem less ad hominem in nature.

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And yet if I do provide such full explanations at every opportunity, I will be accused, with some justice, of using the board as a venue for my polemic, and thus spamming.So, I can't give a full explanation, and I can't refer to my views - so what the hell is it I should do? Furthermore, if the board repeatedely reacts this way please understand that you are conditioning further responses. If arrogant out-of-hand rejections and baseless ad hominem insults are the standard resonse to any unusual argument, then you have forfeited any expectation of politeness. What goes around comes around.

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I might add, taking a trip to the US to dispell some of the very inaccurate visions you have about that place. As problematic as it is, it simply is not how you depict it (though watching FoxNEWS would give one that impression... gag).

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Thats not going to happen. I would never got to visit the US any more than I would have gone to Nazi Germany; it would imply tacit consent. Thats quite apart form the fact they still ask "are you or have you ever been a member of the communhist party", and becuiase I am a member of an organisation classified as terrorist.This message has been edited by contracycle, 01-24-2005 11:59 AM